viernes, 30 de abril de 2010

Jaco, San Jose, Birthdays and goodbyes...

The sad day came when I needed to sell my surf board in preparation for leaving so me and two friends trooped down to Jaco, the closest surfy tourist town near here to sell it and hang out for the day. We pretty much sold it as quick as possible to get rid of it and spent the day hunting down cool arty things and souvenirs and had a massive smoothie for morning tea and for lunch as well as an avocado and some crackers that I sneakily ate while colleen my other friend ate a muesli bar at a restaurant where Leona was the only one buying food…(yes we know we are cheap and that when i was younger had my parents done such a thing I would have been mortified!!) Then we sat on the beach had the yummiest passion fruit sorbet and came home….

A few weekends later I decided I wanted to buy a bag for travelling in San Jose so Colleen and I went into the capital and then out to this wealthy area where we had heard there was a really nice mall… It was super super nice… for lunch we shared a cinabon roll and got the biggest coffee ever. When ordering coffee we asked how big their cups were and they showed us these tiny wee things so we saked if there was anything bigger… the lady was like well we could charge you for two coffees and put it in this… and whipped out a massive fizzy drink cup!! it was AWESOME!! we both took one look at it and said “that’s what we’re talking about’ so we sat happily in this shiny new mall munching and drinking our treats. We found the bag… YAY… and spent the day wandering and trying on lots of cute but expensive clothes…

The final thing that happened that was exciting was that we had another birthday this week. So we went out for tea. Our fav restaurant was closed so we chose somewhere we had never been before… it was a small pizza place and we were originally quite concerned cos we were the only ones in the place but after an age we got our pizza (it took so long that we think they probably went out back and slaughtered all the animals and grew the tomatoes and onions from scratch) and it was amazing, this was followed by a movie at a friends house and some yummy carrot cake…

Oh this week we also said goodbye to this Catholic feed the homeless drunks thing we have been volunteering for this semester. Costa Rica though it tries to hide its poverty and does pretty well still has issues and me and three friends were blessed to be able to help out at such a cool outreach. Every week our job was to makeup and bag the juice. We always had to add more sugar no matter how sweet we thought it was because the Costa Ricans love sweet drinks… we would fondly term the juice ‘diabetes in a cup’. Anyway the people who ran it were really sweet and they gave us a really lovely farewell party which was so nice,on a sad note one of the cute old drunk men who used to sing to me died from liver poisoning...

This is the end of my blog catch up unless I have a revelation this evening that I have forgotten something important!! I will try and update when travelling but knowing me this may not happen!! hope you all enjoy reading about the last four months  catch ya soon!!
once again see facebook for photos

Semana Santa / Holy week

Here in Costa Rica Catholicism is MASSIVE like in all parts of Central and South America. So instead of having just the fri, sat, sun off like we do the whole week in the lead up to good Friday (santo viernes). On Thursday avo the whole country comes to a stand still until Saturday morning and many masses and processions are held.

So like the rest of the country I had the semana santa off from school… Now what was I to do with it. I had some friends going to Panama but I had gone last semester and didn’t want to spend money and go again. I had other friends who had people coming to visit them and they were going to stay in a house in Jaco with them and so there was me…

I was thinking of going over to Montezuma where I had missed going cos I was sick and that was my plan until… Jack, a fellow year long student asked me if I liked rafting… so he had been planning a week long rafting trip with some friends that were coming down and his girlfriend wasn’t sure if she was still coming and if she pulled out there would be a spot and I could have it… she pulled out 

So on the Sunday before easter weekend we left for San Jose, got off the bus at the airport where our guide met us and took us to his home in a wee city called Turrialba.
We got there and met the guides wife and wee little one year old son… The wife, Andrea was my age and it was really nice to have a friend to come back to at night as all the people we were rafting with were males. We also stayed at their house and they were soooo lovely!!

So for four days we rafted leaving in the morning and coming back in the late afternoon.

DAY ONE: Pejibaye (or pejevalle depending on where you look), the first section we had to do in infkatable kayaks cos it was too skinny to do in a raft. I had never used one before and some of the rapids were reasonably big… came out a few times and got a few knocks but it was fun!! the second section we did in the raft… I liked the raft a lot…. didn’t come out at all!!!

DAY TWO: Upper Pacuare. This was super fun. I did most of it in the raft… when we stopped to play in a rapid tho I did run it in a ducky (what the kayaks were called) and I stayed in which I was rather pleased about… I developed a rather good physics (?) reasoning for why I kept falling out… it wasn’t that I was bad at it, it was simply that I wasn’t heavy enough to keep the boats stable like the boys were haha…

DAY THREE: aka the most amazing day on the river ever!! we ran some awesome rapids including a class five!! it was awesomely cool!! I would love to do it again… the river was called the Reventazon…

DAY FOUR: Lower Pacuare, lots of fun too we had some good play arounds in the rapids and saw some stunning scenery… by the end of the day I was exhausted!!
We drove to Puerto Viejo this night where we slept in hammocks cos there were no beds in the hostels. I was surprised at how easy I slept… plan to bring one home with me IF I have space…

DAY FIVE: hung round Puerto Viejo and the beaches near by till early avo, saw some cool caves. Then I went back to Turrialba with one other student and stayed the night with the guide and wife again, had the most amazing meal, who knew that dried fish soup (the fish rehydrates) could be so good… we couldn’t get back to Puntarenas as there was no public transport on Friday,

and on Saturday we came home to the Punt… what a good week!!, didn’t want to come home because the climate in Turrialba was amazing and I was so over the heat of the PUNT, and I really got on well with my friend Andrea but had to so we did…

jueves, 29 de abril de 2010

Monteverde

This semester our overnight trip with Uni was to Monteverde a cloud forest (yep just like it sounds a forest in the clouds). It was also over the weekend that held our friend Amanda’s Birthday. So a few of us girlies got together and made a banana cake and iced it and then froze it in the tin so it would travel good. It took a bit of sneakiness to get it up to Monteverde without anyone noticing we had a cake on us but it worked out well and we managed it!!!
The morning we left we met early and got some yummy bread for breakfast as it was Amandas birthday…

Anyways we got there on sat morning ad had the best pizza lunch… it was so good… the best part no rice and no beans!!! (yep a little over those). Then we headed out for a forest walk… we were supposed to see wild life but all we saw was a centipede and a stick insect hmmmmm maybe we were too loud… but the forest was cool and very Jurassic parky…we also went to a hummingbird garden… I don’t really (read AT ALL) like birds especially ones that flitter al over the show so I was very close to screaming at times when they got too close to me… we went back to the hotel… had a nap under blankets (because of clouds it was chilly) and then hot showers before going out for din dins… we ate and came back to the hotel for some special coffee and to eat the cake. We stayed up to the wee small hours of the morning playing fun hand clappy rhythm games!!

Breakfast (after another hot shower… BLISS) was fruit, cha whooo, then we got ready to go zip lining. The zip lining was the most amazing thing ever!!! it was sooo high and the lines were insanely long!! the final one was 1km flying over the top of forest!! it was crazy cool.

a butterfly garden later and we were on the bus heading for home… what a sweet weekend!!

The next weekend we were to start spring break and as Erik’s birthday was on the sat we decided to celebrate early and have a fire and make smores on the beach on the thurday night… the boys got crazy lighting palm leaves one fire and waving the around… but a the women of this couple visiting Erik who had had three sons told us not to worry and that it was just a boy thing!!

well next blog will be about my AMAZING time during spring break so hold tight!!!

Oh and if there are losts of mistakes i apologise... learning spanish has screwed with my english spelling and i was never good to begin with anyway, and i am too lazy to spell check...

SICK SICK SICK

So quite soon after our week off (actually the very next week) the rounds of birthdays for our group of friends started! Colleens was on the Thursday.

BUT before we could get to the birthday I got sick… Now not just normally a day off sick but the sickest I can ever remember being!! I am for real here it was BAD! and because sick stories are always funny in retrospect I shall share my rather humorous one with you!!

So here goes…
So on Sunday night I (yep on the sat I went to the movies in San Jose and this is now the very next day) I started to get some mild back pain but I thought it was from sitting on the bus or something the day before. Then on Monday morning I wasn’t feeling too hot but okish… Tuesday I had TWO exams I did one, went home, slept, did the other BOTH feeling kinda gross but very drugged up on Ibprofen… by the end of the second exam my Ibprofen had really kicked in and I was feeling good so when my friend asked if she could still use my bathroom to cut a guys hair that night I said “as long as its early”. So 7.30pm came around (I hadn’t eaten all day cos I felt gross) and I was starting to feel really cold. (so in puntarenas where it is 40 degrees even in your room and that is no exaggeration, when you feel cold you feel like an IDIOT) you KNOW something is not good… but my friends showed up, came into my room and I lay in bed. Half way through the hair cut I thought, Oh my word… I want to chunder… what am I going to do I have three people in my room… so I asked one of them to go and ask my host momma for a bowl… eventually we got one sorted but I REALLY didn’t want to be sick with all those people in my room, how embarrassing… The haircut took FOREVER!!! you would not believe it.. I was in so much pain trying to hold my vomit in and I thought my friends were never ever ever going to leave but eventually they did and I could vomit in peace. During all this time I started to have cold patches and hot patches…

So the rest of the night was a real treat. I vomited every time I tried to drink water so I was getting really dehydrated; I was super super hot… once again in 40 degree heat even more unpleasant than normal. And by hot I mean ON FIRE. I was sweating and would heat up my sheets so much that I would roll of my patch and a few minutes later when I rolled back on they were still super hot. And then I would go to cold, so cold I was chattering and with all my warm clothes on and a blanket couldn’t get warm, then hot, cold, hot, vomit, cold… all night!! at 6 the next morning I found some flat ginger ale in the fridge and that stayed down (phew cos I was thinking I may have to go get a drip if I still couldn’t hold liquid down). So for the next few days I still was quite feverish and didn’t eat anything.

On Thursday it was Colleens birthday and we were going out for dinner, we were also meeting her friend from the states Mandy. I was not feeling good or like eating but shoved a few ibuprofen into me and went to dinner. It was fun but what was not fun was that I started to develop a hacking cough! it started to rip my abs to pieces and was sooo painful

got through the birthday dinner and then went to bed, where I didn’t sleep cos I was hacking all night. Then Friday morning I had another delightful exam which I had to do in the hot porch cos my cough was disturbing everyone…

I went home and had to make a very sad decision…

We had been planning a big fun group trip with Colleens friend and I was super excited BUT I was really too sick and no one would want to be my friend after a weekend of being kept awake by my coughing. So I decided to stay in Puntarenas while they went of and had a jolly old time.

I got some very powerful prescription cough medicine which helped a little but I still coughed constantly for the next week and was feeling yuck for a good while. I still actually am coughing from it but not too much…

anyway that is my fun sick sick story… as said before it is funny now but at the time… well it was gross and I cant remember anything like it… maybe it was the H1N1???

miércoles, 28 de abril de 2010

Week off!!

Also like last semester there was a week long trip but this time to Nicaragua. However as I had already done some exploring in Nicaragua I decided to save my money (school trips are rather expensive) and do some other traveling.

BUT just before our big week off something very exciting happened… two of my bestest friends here from Reno, Nevada in the states. They were dating when they got here (had been for like 2 yrs) and got engaged at a 2 and a half yrs so it wasn’t a surprise really to any one back home or to those who knew them well here but it is still so exciting!!! Erik told me he had bought the ring about a week or two before her proposed so I had to keep my lips sealed for quite a while. (if anyone wishes to sponser me to get over to the wedding in August I will not say no!!)

Well we left them in Puntarenas to start wedding planning and went off travelling. Due to groups expanding and changing my friend Laura and I eventually decided just to travel the two of us for the week. We decided to see a few of the Northern beaches in Costa Rica and then head to Nicaragua cos Laura had to do a border run.

So for the first section we had to take a bus with some fellow USACers to a town called Liberia. From there we were heading out to the Pacific and they were heading nth to Nicaragua. Got to Liberia and bought our tickets to our next stop, we were going to a beach called Brasilitos. As we were waiting for our bus the others loaded onto the bus for Nicaragua. Moments later Cody comes running off and grabs his surf board out from under the bus… turns out her forgot his passport… a rather essential piece of equipment for border crossing. So that Cody didn’t have to go all the way back to Puntarenas by himself we decided to change plans. We changed our tickets to Tamarindo beach, better for surfing, and went there instead. Laura and I hired boards and for the next three days this was our rutine. Breakfast, surf, lunch, (shop maybe) nap, surf, dinner, sleep… we were so tired from surfing that we were real nanas and slept early…

The surf wasn’t the best but it was still lots of fun, and the beach was 100% nicer than the one we have in the dirty Punt!! we decided to come back to Puntarenas early rather than going anywhere else and I hung out round here and with Colleen and Erik for the rest of the week.

On Saturday I gave them their engagement present and took them in to San Jose for the day. We had churros filled with caramel and coffee!! then we went to the movies- saw Hurt Locker which was very strange but very good!

Carnivales… whoop whoop get your fiesta on!!

SO every year Puntarenas is home to Carnivales just before lent starts. It is a time of party partying!!! There were tons and tons of food stalls… ate my weight in caramel filled donut logs thingys called churros rellenos… every night the streets were pretty full with people and dancing!! BUT the final night was by far the most packed! there was a concert during the day with this really awesome reggae band called fuerza dread and there was this famous international guy but Im not cool enough to have heard of him before or remember his name… so you will have to live without knowing…
well I actually enjoyed the week though I was ready for the Punt to shrink back to normal size and for the mounds of rubbish and crap to be cleared away… and oh my for the smell after the horse parade to go away!!

First part of the new semester!

Ok so yes I have yet again waited a LONG time to post a blog… but you kinda get a better deal when you think about it because now im only going to remember the good stuff to write about so you wont have to wade through any of the boring stuff!! I aim to have you pretty good and caught up in a couple of days but I do have exams soon so…
ok so cranking into it… (please note something may not appear chronologically but rather in an idea as it fits better or something…)

I waited all day for the new kids to arrive cos my friend from nz was coming! When she got here her accent sounded so weird!! but it was great to hang with a kiwi again!! The only kiwis I had met in the past 5 months had been at the border crossing back into Costa Rica a few days early there were a few girls in the line for the loo... they were from Auckland so maybe that explains there behaviour but they were not very friendly (note to all kiwi travelers it is pretty much a law that when you meet other kiwis you should act excited and welcoming!!) so I was happy to see Leona!

As with last semester we had a day trip during our second weekend. We went to visit a national park on the Nicoya peninsula as well as a really pretty island group called the Tortuga Islands. In the national park we wondered around trying to spot some exciting animals… eventually we saw a howler monkey and a camo butterfly but all the animalitos seemed to be hiding… We went snorkeling, it was cool, quite a few fish but the Caribbean has spoiled my snorkeling experiences for life as I don’t know how anything will compare to the coral and fishes we saw over there… For afternoon tea there was a ton of fruit and Colleen and I went crazy just because we never get fruit in our houses... it was soooooooo good…

Because we hadn’t learned from our last church camp experience we decided to go on another one back to the same finca… OH MY WORD… WHY WHY WHY is all I ask… it was torture!! I learnt about all the fun things Christians cant do… like drink at all, dance anywhere, go to the beach?? also how I should go to church about 100 times a week… yeah sign me up for that… so glad I don’t have to do all that/ not do that to actually have a relationship with Christ but it sure made me feel sorry for all the kiddos in that youth group. Me and colleen had some good bonding time sharing a single mattress again for two nights… again we were busting to get out of there but the funny and awkward strange moments did kinda make it worthwhile!

This semester I signed up for a conversation partner again, they are students learning English and so we practice some English and some Spanish. Last semester it didn’t work out too well as my partner never showed after the first time when he found out I wasn’t from the states (no chance of a green card) and I didn’t really like to party. So this semester I got paired with an older married chica… she was lovely and we talked for an hour each week for the first couple of weeks until I got sick and then we never really organized to meet again. But she was really cool the times we did hang out… she taught me how to make tres leches, a traditional (and yummy) desert here. if you are in palmy in NZ I shall make it for you sometime if you want! I also got taken with the family to a really nice river and we had a bbq and swam and walked a little. It was a really cute place check out photos on facebook… (should be up soon)…

ok so that is the first part of the blog. I intend to still break up the sections a little so you can digest them and not get beaten to death with way to much writing… once again no photos yet unless someone can instruct this technologically illiterate girl on the art of uploading pics quickly… look on face book!!